Category: Blog

A news alert is a real-time media statement about a current or developing story. It is disseminated through various channels including TV, radio and web to capture attention from a wide audience. News alerts often include essential information about the five W’s – who, what, where, when and why to help audiences grasp a situation quickly.

Mastering how to craft effective news alerts is an indispensable skill for PR professionals. By the end of this article, you’ll possess 13 invaluable tips that will elevate your alerts to the next level.

Typically crafted by lawyers and edited, formatted and distributed by marketing teams, client alerts play a critical role in law firm marketing. They communicate important legal changes to clients in a timely manner, helping to establish firms as trusted business advisers.

When drafted well, a media advisory can be a powerful tool that helps build relationships with local reporters and media outlets. The key is to clearly communicate the who, what, when, where and why of an event to entice journalists to cover it.

If your event is happening in a city or region that has a strong connection to a reporter, focus on this aspect of the story and highlight how it will benefit their readers. Also, be sure to provide contact information for someone at the company or organization who reporters can interview and find more information if needed.

Media alerts are one-page announcements about an upcoming event that are specifically intended for journalists (not the public). They’re similar to press releases, but have the added purpose of convincing reporters that your event is a legitimate news story worth coverage.

An investor update is a document that provides investors with key metrics, financials, team updates, customer wins, and the current state of your startup. They can be shared via email, Word docs, slides, or PDFs. The goal is to share a clear picture of the company’s performance and progress that will build trust, maintain transparency, and help you raise capital more effectively.

Investors have a real, monetary stake in your business, so they deserve to know both the good and bad news. However, many founders make the mistake of only reaching out with positive updates, which can ring hollow and lead to distrust. Likewise, only communicating challenges can cause alarm and panic, and by the time you need them to help you out, they may have lost interest.

As such, it’s important to find a balance between highs and lows, and to be consistent with your approach. The best way to do this is to pick a schedule (e.g. at the end of every month, or at the start of the next) and stick to it, so your investors can expect a regular and timely update.

You can also lower the lift on this task by choosing a template that you can reuse, and filling it out each time with the highlights of the past month. Also, make sure to include an executive summary that is brief and clearly communicates key performance indicators like revenue growth, cash runway, and more. And of course, don’t forget to thank your investors for their support.

Internet privacy is the safeguarding of personal and sensitive information shared, transmitted, or stored during online usage. It is crucial for individuals to protect their digital privacy in order to avoid situations like identity theft and having private data sold on the dark web.

In a world where the average person uses multiple devices and social media platforms, internet privacy concerns have increased significantly. This is because each device creates its own digital trail that hackers and companies can use to track and monitor one’s activity, including search history and browsing habits. In some cases, these activities can even be linked to a specific individual for more targeted advertising.

The problem is, most people are unaware that their internet activity is being tracked by third parties. This includes their internet service providers (ISPs) which can collect and sell information about one’s surfing habits without their permission. It is also possible for a hacker to access a person’s ISP account and then gain access to other information, such as their bank or credit card details.

Fortunately, there are many things you can do to protect your internet privacy. This can include using a VPN, switching to a different search engine such as DuckDuckGo or Telegram, and changing the default Wi-Fi password. Other tips include avoiding using shared playlists or folders, creating throwaway email addresses for subscriptions and not sharing them with family and friends, being wary of spam emails, ensuring your social media profiles are private and avoiding public posts that disclose sensitive information such as health issues.

A news flash is a piece of breaking news that interrupts radio or TV broadcasts to keep listeners updated on current events. They can be local, national or international and can include a mix of hard and soft news. A good news flash starts with a compelling headline that accurately and enticingly conveys what the story is about. It then follows the inverted pyramid style, introducing the most important facts first and adding supporting information as it goes along. It also cites its sources and ends with a nut graph that adds context and ties the main points together to show their significance.

A good newsflash also includes a strong lead that grabs readers’ attention and draws them in so that they will continue listening to the full article. This is often done by using a narrative hook or an anecdote to encapsulate the subject matter in a creative way that will make listeners want to learn more. The lead should also use the “show, don’t tell” technique, avoiding the use of words to describe what is happening and instead letting listeners hear and see it for themselves.

Finally, a good news flash will conclude with a forward-looking element that shows how the subject matter will affect listeners in the future. This can be a call to action, an interview with an expert or even a humorous piece of news that will leave listeners smiling.

The blockchain is the backbone of cryptocurrencies, but it also offers many real-world applications. It enhances trust, traceability and efficiency in industries such as healthcare, supply chain management and banking. It has even expanded from its crypto roots to decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT). As blockchain technology moves into the mainstream, more and more news outlets are emerging to keep investors, industry stakeholders and observers informed about what’s happening in this rapidly evolving space.

Cointelegraph is a leading news portal that covers all things cryptocurrency and the DeFi ecosystem. Its editorial approach is based on the belief that the blockchain will be an integral part of our future. As such, it strives to provide transparency and comprehension to its readers by covering topics ranging from crypto price charts and opinion pieces to DeFi research tools and podcasts.

Forbes Digital Assets is a dedicated section of the Forbes website that covers the latest developments in the crypto and blockchain arena. The site covers everything from crypto prices and market trends to DeFi innovations and expert insights, attracting a substantial audience of over 1 million monthly visitors as of January 2025, according to Similarweb.

In November 2020, EY teams conducted a live psychology experiment using an Implicit Association Test and eye tracking to examine the perception of real and fake news stories. The results showed that spoofed content is far more effective than genuine articles at inciting negative emotions and driving sharing, reinforcing the importance of verifying news sources and educating consumers on how to identify fake news.

An economic forecast is the prediction of an economy’s quarterly or annual GDP growth rate, a top-level macro number that many governments and businesses use to determine investments, hiring, spending, and other important policies. Large companies often have in-house economists to focus on assessing forecasts that are pertinent to their business, and government officials typically take into account economic forecasts when creating fiscal and monetary policy.

Economic forecasts are influenced by many factors, including central bank policies and global events. Monetary policy, such as interest rate adjustments and money supply controls, can have a big impact on economic trends by encouraging or discouraging borrowing and investment, while global events can change exchange rates, affect global supply chains, and contribute to inflation.

Forecasting accuracy is impacted by the education and work experience of forecasters, as well as their behavioral biases. Forecasters’ tendency to play it safe may lead them to shy away from making bold predictions that could damage their reputations. However, McCracken says research has shown that there are ways to improve the accuracy of economic forecasts. For example, there are now numerical measurements of uncertainty that can be incorporated into models to help reduce the influence of subjective judgment in predicting future economic variables.

The global outlook for 2025 has been downgraded as a result of rising trade barriers and elevated policy uncertainty. A number of downside risks remain, including weaker-than-expected growth in oil exporters, escalation of armed conflicts, and extreme weather events.

National news is news that has a larger scope than local or community news and covers issues with a wider impact. This includes news that has a significant influence on a large number of people or communities across a nation such as national politics, economics, and major disasters. National news is often published in newspapers, broadcast by radio and television, and accessed via social media. It may also be gathered by reporters who are either full-time employees of a newspaper or news agency (sometimes called stringers) or freelance journalists who are contracted to report for several different media companies at the same time.

National news programs can vary in duration, style and format. Typically, they cover a broad range of topics but are not as in-depth or detailed as local or community news. However, there are some exceptions, such as local newscasts produced by major commercial television networks. These usually appear as standalone newscasts that run for a half hour or shorter segments that are attached to national morning network newscasts at 25 and 55 minutes past the hour.

Local news can also be produced by television networks’ local affiliate stations that are owned and operated independently from the national network. These are often known as ‘local news opt-ins’ and can use the same graphics, branding, and studio designs as the national network although they do not air in simulcast with the main network newscasts. Examples of this include WGN America, NY1 New York and KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City which both use the NBC News branding for their local newscasts.

A software update is a patch, an upgrade or any other modification to the original version of a piece of software that corrects security vulnerabilities or enhances performance. The updates are made available by the software vendor for download and installation on devices, such as computers, mobile phones and digital games. Keeping software and operating systems fully updated is one of the best ways to protect against cybercriminals who target vulnerabilities in outdated programs.

Updates can be small, containing only a few new files or they can be very large and involve replacing or adding a substantial amount of data. The most common type of update is a “service pack” which contains multiple individual patches, which are then consolidated into a single package that can be installed on all machines connected to a network. These updates can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process to apply, especially when many machines must be updated at once.

Some updates are critical for security reasons and must be applied as soon as they become available, while others may not impact the overall functionality of a system. In general, however, the sooner updates are applied, the better, as they can reduce a device’s vulnerability to known cyber threats. This helps to ensure that users’ personal information is protected and their hardware is secure, and it also minimizes the potential impact of a hacking incident or a malicious software infection.

A news update is a short article about a current, interesting or significant event or development. This type of news article is often written to inform readers and provide an overview of the issue in question, while also presenting relevant facts and figures to give context. News updates are often written in a style called the inverted pyramid, where the most important details appear first and least important information appears last.

Whether you’re a journalist needing up-to-the-minute breaking news, a researcher tracking global events, or simply someone who wants to stay informed on the latest headlines, the right news app can transform how you interact with the world. Top news apps integrate seamlessly with other content platforms, offer customization options to focus on your interests, and enable real-time alerts to keep you updated as events unfold. Additionally, leading news apps verify and cross-reference data to ensure accuracy.

News Break

A leading global news aggregation app, News Break is a fast, intuitive way to get the latest global developments from the top sources. It prioritizes reliable, credible news and offers a unique feature that allows users to search for specific words or phrases in articles, making it easy to find stories that match your preferences.

SBwire

A business news aggregation app that provides in-depth market analysis and breaking financial news, SBwire is designed to meet the needs of business professionals and investors. Its specialized algorithms analyze and curate data from a variety of top sources to deliver accurate news in a streamlined, user-friendly interface. SBwire also emphasizes accuracy by highlighting key market trends and providing expert analysis, enabling users to make faster decisions with confidence.

The AI breakthrough is when artificial intelligence achieves a significant milestone, advancing the technology beyond its role as an assistant or a tool to help humans do their jobs. These breakthroughs challenge long-held assumptions about what is possible with AI and mark new frontiers for innovation.

In 1956, Cornell University professor Frank Rosenblatt proposed that a computer could “recognize patterns in optical, electrical and tonal data.” This marked the first step toward creating an intelligent machine that could perceive and process information in ways similar to humans.

A number of important AI advancements have occurred in the last two decades. A key milestone was the shift from rules-based decision-making to statistically derived decision-making using neural networks. This change accelerated the pace of AI development and helped establish AI as a business tool that is transforming operations, customer experiences and bottom lines.

Another significant advancement was the development of reinforcement learning in AI. This change in algorithm enables an AI to use data to learn from its mistakes and improve over time. For example, an AI system may be able to solve a chess game by trial and error, based on its observations of the actions of other players. This is an unprecedented capability that can speed up the development of new applications for AI.

In 2022, Google DeepMind announced that it had developed the first Reinforcement Learning AI to control the plasma inside a nuclear fusion reactor. This is an incredible feat that can potentially accelerate the production of abundant clean energy for all.